This article from Bloomberg pretty much cements exactly what you have been reading here about the data selling epidemic and Walgreens knew how to craft the algorithms in a way to make them a ton of money selling data, around a billion a year

As the article states you have to walk 500 miles to get a $5 discount but in return they get the data as you log in. Again too, “they care” no they want the money. Let’s be real. Strap on that device so we can get the data. I’m not saying that the devices are not serving a purpose but there are others out there that I talk about that don’t sell you data and to me, when you are not making corporate America rich with selling your data and giving up your privacy, that’s a real plus to me. The Sensoria sensors even go beyond the accelerators that Fitbit and the rest have and you get to choose who gets to see the data. Here’s a couple from the archives that tell you how this works with the business models of the devices and apps that sell data and remember Walgreens does have your phone number or the card to offer you savings. Anymore they just want your phone number and how hard is that to re-query and find out who you are? Remember too they sell prescription data so again how hard is that to match up with this data? Think about it..

And we have insurance companies buying up your Visa and MasterCard records…and as Larry Ellison from Oracle said in a recent interview worry about the NSA as #2 as banks have 30 years worth or so of data they can sell. Insurance companies buy data from drug stores, lots of it and then re-query and resell you again.

After all of this has been going on we have this with consumers finding their data out there on the web and no clue how it got there and certainly when you have been re-sold and re-queried a number of times this happens. This also increases the amount of flawed data out there.

The time has come to license and excise tax ALL the data sellers out there as they are numerous and all want to make a buck “flipping algorithms” today with little or no concern as to how it ends up affecting the end consumer. Certainly Walgreens would be in a good spot as well as banks and other companies to pay some tax here. When the data gets flawed and we can’t get a car, loan or whatever they we are stuck and all the data sellers have a pool of “free labor” to fix it..us as we are stuck otherwise. This is the big fear with all of this as well as “data used out of context” against us as I covered in “THE ATTACK OF THE KILLER ALGORITHMS.

For a better understanding on the mechanics of how all this works and why modeling for inequality with segmentation is so powerful out there, visit the ALGO DUPING page and take in a few videos and you will get it, something you have never seen explained to you before where the layman can understand what goes on behind closed server doors. You can also scroll to the footer and take in a few of these educational videos on this page as well. BD

Walgreen (WAG), the biggest drug-store chain in the U.S., has been trying to make its customers healthier—at least ostensibly. It’s a counter-intuitive strategy for a company that collects one in five U.S. pharmacy dollars and fills 821 million prescriptions a year to treat diabetes, high cholesterol, and a spate of other conditions that might be improved by some push-ups or prancercising.

Walgreen carefully crafted the program to be stingy with the discounts. To get $5 off through Steps With Balance Rewards, a customer would have to walk 500 miles. But on any given day, participants are only allowed to log a maximum of 20 points—the equivalent of a one-mile walk. So if you walk a mile a day for almost two years, you can save $5 at the pharmacy. (Shoppers can get a $5 discount a lot faster by simply filling 10 prescriptions through a Walgreen store.)

The math isn’t the important thing here; it’s the message: Walgreen cares about you. The company is subtly trying to create the kind of psychological, emotional connection that marketers pine for. If it gets a person to log into its activity app every day, that person is likely to be a more loyal shopper—and more likely to buy some of Walgreen’s health and wellness products, from FitBit activity trackers to Flintstones vitamins.

Dark Arts of Mathemical Deception

Professor Charlie Siefe of NYU, a mathematician debunks clinical trials, and few other items to where data is spun and fools you, every day example, hear about the perfect butt algorithm and more. These are probably some things you have never thought about but again after listening to what he has to say, it’s time to think about being skeptical. Here’s a radio show that also talks about the same topics.

This video digs in a bit further with how fictitious business models are used by banks and companies do this too. The models are so complex that CEOs don’t even understand them. “Quants, The Alchemists of Wall Street will take you through how “math models” work at banks and financial institutions in a way that even the layman can understand. More videos like over at theAlgo Duping/Killer Algorithm Page. Bank of America will also tell you“IT’ is a business” how they make money.

Weapons of Math Destruction

This is a lecture where Kathy O’Neill, a former Quant who worked for a Hedge Fund (Weapons of Math Destruction) on Wall Street will tell you what is done with your retirement money and more. The banks and companies use technology to take advantage because they can. “Of course we are going to take advantage because our tools are our brains…if they could figure out a way to take advantage of pension funds they would, a good interview with explaining smart money and dumb money.

Algorithms Shape The World

This is a very good presentation done a TED Conference and really was the one that got everyone started thinking about algorithms and today it’s talked about a lot. As he says “if you’re an algorithm, life is looking pretty good, but can’t say the same for humans”. What is a black box? Nobody has any control over the flash crash. We have moved forward a bit but still we are writing the unreadable and lost the sense of some of what is happening. Nice plug for Nanex here with research.